Checking my blog, I was astonished to find that the last time I ran a 5K race was 6 whole years back!! I could have sworn that I ran a couple every year before Covid hit. Turns out that is not true.

So, after 6 years then, I ran a 5K race today. Heart and Sole 5K run (for special learning kids). It was to start from Avalon. Which is a walking distance away for us. I used that to get my warm up run done. Registered on the spot.

The environment was electrifying. Lots of folks – young kids, elderly persons, cute dogs, folks who clearly looked like they run some 20 miles every day and there were those who probably thought they said “Rum” instead of “Run”!

The run itself was very enjoyable. The adrenaline rush of police escorts, people cheering from the side and photographers everywhere was enough to make most runners shave off quite some time from their normal pace. My thrilling moments of passing other runners (especially uphill) were often supplanted by folks with two dogs attached to them breezing past me!

I was fairly surprised that the first mile was at 9:03 pace. That is nearly 2 minutes faster than my normal pace. The second mile slowed down to 9:28. But the third one speeded up to 9:16. The final piece was at 8:16! Total 29:14 mins. My apple watch showed that we covered a little more distance than 5K (3.17mile instead of 3.1) – so I have to wait for them to post the final chip times on their website.

I have no doubt in my mind that the reason for so much better performance compared to my usual pace is because of the excitement of the crowds.

Apr 26 Update: Out of 369 runners, I came at the 65th position. The chip timer showed 29:19.